Lead Poisoning: how Caused and how best Prevented.
Unless great care is taken, work in lead and lead compounds is injurious to health, because the lead enters the system and causes lead poisoning.
Danger is greatest from breathing leady dust or fume, but eating with unwashed hands, and biting nails or putting such things as sweets or pipes into the mouth while the fingers are soiled with lead, all help to cause poisoning.
Many workers in lead have a blue line round the edge of the gums, but the first actual symptoms of the injurious action of lead on the system are costiveness, colicky pains in the stomach, headache, and marked paleness. Occasionally headache is associated with epileptic fits, a very serious condition, which may be followed by loss of sight. “Wrist-drop,” loss of power in the muscles moving the fingers and wrist, results sometimes from lead poisoning, and may cause permanent disablement from work. It does not usually come on until after a person has worked in lead for some years.
Lead, even if absorbed in small quantities, has a tendency to remain in the system, and if care be not taken it will go on accumulating, so that in time the health may become permanently damaged, even without any definite attack recognized as lead poisoning.
Girls and boys, because they are not so likely to observe the necessary precautions as grown-up people, should be closely watched. Women should be especially careful, as the injurious effect of lead in them may seriously interfere with the healthiness of their children.
As lead does not enter the system through the pores of the skin, it can in great measure be avoided by—
1. Taking special care to avoid raising dust. It is to the interest of everyone to see that ventilating arrangements are in order for carrying dust away at the point where it is produced.
Any little cloud constantly made at work is sure, if breathed, to set up lead poisoning. Where lead colours are used wet, danger arises from the splashing of the material and its subsequent drying into dust.
2. Paying scrupulous attention to cleanliness of the hands, face, teeth, and clothing. The hands and nails should always be cleaned with soap and nail-brush before food is eaten, and it is a wise practice also to wash out the mouth. The teeth should be brushed at least once a day, preferably before the evening meal.
3. Never commencing work on an empty stomach. Food containing fat, such as bacon and milk, is suitable.
Overall suits, if worn, should never be shaken to rid them of dust. They require washing at least once a week.
Aperient medicine, such as Epsom salts (one or two teaspoonfuls in water), can be taken once or twice a week with advantage by lead-workers.
Experience shows that the habits and home life of the workers influence their liability to lead poisoning. Intemperate persons are the first to fall victims. Those who begin work on an empty stomach incur additional risk by so doing.
Carefulness while at work, and cleanliness, offer the best means of escaping attacks of lead poisoning.
Those who work in lead should keep in mind every hour of every working day the importance of not breathing lead dust and not carrying lead to the mouth in any way.
Medical advice should at once be obtained if signs of lead poisoning present themselves.